May 2010

May 17, 2010

Last Wednesday the Business Insider reported that a mobile industry insider confirmed to them that Apple was building Facebook features into iPhone OS 4. Perhaps "Apple's new hooks into Facebook," reported Frommer "will make this sync process part of the phone's operating system and not just a feature of the Facebook app." Coincidentally, a recently published Apple patent sheds light on this very subject under the scope of a fuller social networking application concerning various workflows including an "Add Contact" workflow and a "Social Networking" workflow which specifically highlights an exemplary Facebook example. This report covers Apple's "Workflow" patent that is indeed presented as a possible future iPhone OS upgrade consideration.

May 13, 2010

Within the sixteen patent applications that were published by the US Patent & Trademark Office for Apple Inc today, a single gem emerged. It's a very powerful new concept for a location based application service that is one of the most ingenious ideas that have surfaced on this subject in some time. The idea is simple. Deliver a location based service to information savvy iPhone users that wish to receive temporary retail and service-based applications. Imagine standing at the entrance of a restaurant and viewing their menu on your iPhone or entering a public library and being able to access their database. The minute you leave the library or the front of that restaurant, the app disappears so that you don't clog up your iPhone with hundreds of local business apps. I don't know if Apple will tackle this at their upcoming developer conference, but this is a phenomenal opportunity for hungry developers and/or Business Form companies looking for a new avenue for revenue. There are millions of non-geek business owners who are going to want in on this service so as to attract new tech savvy iPhone using clients. Snooze on this opportunity and you'll Lose.

On May 13, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest trademark related to their iPhone "Calendar" icon under application 85033749. Apple has filed their trademark under the single International Class 009 covering "Computer software for personal information management, data synchronization and sharing, automated reminders, and event scheduling," according to their filing. Apple's webpage statesthat "Calendar works with Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Outlook, iCal, MobileMe, and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for Enterprise to bring everything together."

May 12, 2010

On April 16, 2010 a savvy investor posted a great report onThe Motley Foolinvestor site in which he stated that "Mobile purchases [and] p2p payments using phones - is a utopia that many telcos, banks, and scheme operations have been looking at for years." On May fourth, the news broke that Visa and DeviceFidelityhave beenworking with Apple on turning your iPhone into a credit card that could be used in restaurants and other retail establishments. Market trials actually begin this summer. At the heart of all this news, of course, is Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. Patently Apple has reported on several new NFC related Apple patents targeting concert tickets,travel andothersin recent weeks and today we're finally beginning to roll out a new series of Apple patents relating to financial transactions. In fact, that's the generic branding associated with a new Apple Application shown on iPhone patent figures: Transaction. Today, Patently Apple presents you with two reports covering "Transaction" beginning with Transaction 101. Yeeees – Welcome to Transaction: The financial utopia of tomorrow.

In part one of this series we provided you with a basic overview of Apple's forthcoming financial application code named Transaction. In part two you'll see a multitude of screenshots related to financial instruments like credit and debit/smart cards, check handling and even group invoicing or split-billing – a common social interaction of splitting a restaurant bill with friends. Patently Apple's report is simply an overview of the iPhone Transaction application patent. For those of you who are bankers, accountants and/or retailers wanting to know a little more about Apple's new financial centric application, we provide you with direction as to where you could find more in-depth patent detailing on each and every topic covered here today.

On May 12, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest trademark application for "TuneKit" under application 85031150 just four days after publishing Apple's "iTunes Live." Apple has filed their trademark under International Class 009 covering "computer software to enable users to program and distribute audio, video, text and other multimedia content via communications networks." Apple's TuneKit provides developers with a library of resources to use in creating iTunes LP and iTunes Extras as a framework that abstracts the WebKit Rich Media technology leveraged by iTunes. You could obtain a PDF of Apple's TuneKit Programming Guide v1.0 here.

May 11, 2010

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of ten newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. The notables within this group includes one that relates to present and future iPad docking stations, another covering the iPhone's Multi-Touch and sensor technology and finally an interesting one that relates to automating call forwarding between a land line phone and an iPhone. It should also be noted that Apple has won two iPod related design patents.

May 09, 2010

On Friday morning, a series of "Made for" trademarks from Apple's were published by the USTPO covering Apple's iPod, iPhone and iPad. In an unusual move by the USPTO, Apple's trademark filing for 'iTunes Live" was published yesterday, Saturday May 8, 2010. With that said, Apple's dual filings are found under applications 85030139 and 85030144 which are respectfully covered by International Classes 035 for "Online retail store services in the field of entertainment," and 041 for "Entertainment services."

May 08, 2010

Nokia first sued Apple in October 2009 alleging that the iPhone infringed on ten of their patents - and Apple humbly repliedwith a countersuit of their own two months later. In April 2010, Patently Apple covered Intel's developer conference in a report titled "Apple's iPhone in Intel's Crosshairs." In that report we pointed to how Intel focused on a partnership with Nokia concerning MeeGo, a software platform to take on Apple's iPhone OS along with Microsoft's future mobile phone platforms and so forth. There's no doubt that in order for MeeGo to be successful, Nokia must at least appear to be both yesteryear's pioneer and tomorrow's visionary in the mobile arena. Yet the future visionary angle is one that Apple has claimed for themselves. During Apple's iPad Special Event in January, Steve Jobs stated the following: "Apple is a mobile devices company: That's' what we do. By revenue, Apple is the largest mobile devices company in the world, now. It's amazing." He went on to point out that Apple was larger than Sony's mobile devices business… that it was bigger than Samsung's mobile devices business and "by revenue, it's even bigger than Nokia's mobile devices business, with all of the handsets that they sell." Yeeees, the war between Nokia and Apple is as much about psychological marketing warfare than it is about patents. It's going to be a very long drawn out public war for the minds of consumers for years to come. Yet in the short term, this report covers the patents that Nokia is claiming Apple is infringing on.

May 07, 2010

On May 7, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published four of Apple's latest trademark applications covering a series of "Made for" insignias covering various combinations of products including the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Our cover graphic represents the first of the four designs.

May 06, 2010

A week ago today, a new patent of Apple's surfaced detailing a future OS X 3D feature relating to ambient light. In today's published patent, Apple takes their future OS dashboard into hyper-drive with 3D widgets. These next generation 3D widgets will actually provide different features, attributes and/or distinct functionality depending on which side of the widget you click on. The user will be able to lift and rotate the widgets to expose these various functions and could be an extraordinary tool that will save you time and useless repetitiveness. With Google running scared of Apple's possible next moves and/or ramp-up into 3D variations of OS X and iPhone OS, they just acquired BumpTop on May 2, 2010. Here's a video of it if you've never heard of BumpTop before. The question becomes, what does Google know about Apple's 3D operating systems that have them on the run?

Apple's first high-end enterprise quality biometric security system patent surfaced back in March of 2009 and with today's patent, Apple takes a giant leap forward in biometric security. In today's patent we discover that future iterations of the iPhone could very well support sophisticated embedded heart sensors to monitor the user's heart and record such data for future identification purposes when making banking transactions or protecting highly sensitive documents or data. This will play a part of a future patent report due later this month. Today's patent further confirms that a future iPhone will indeed support a pico or pico-like projector.

May 05, 2010

On May 5, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two of Apple's latest trademark applications covering a figurative design representing the iPad under application 85025647 and another covering "Made for iPad" under application 85025637. Apple has filed both trademarks under International Class 009 covering a "Full line of electronic and mechanical parts and fittings for handheld computers and portable and handheld digital electronic devices…" The full description of this class for both trademarks is listed in the report.

On May 5, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest trademark application for "Made for iPhone" under application85025627. Apple has filed their trademark under the sole International Class 009 covering a "Full line of electronic and mechanical parts and fittings for handheld computers and portable and handheld digital electronic devices…" The full description of this class is listed in the report.

May 04, 2010

On April 21, 2010 Patently Apple presented a report on an a high profile Apple patent relating to the travel industry which covered an iPhone application called iTravel. It's been the buzz of the travel industry ever since. The timing of the report couldn't have been any better, considering that the Travel Distribution Summit is set to begin on June 17, 2010 in London. One of the noted keynote topics at this year's Summit covers "How to build the perfect travel app." Well, with Apple working diligently on iTravel - the perfect travel app may already be in waiting. In fact, it appears that Apple is currently in the process of test marketing some aspects of iTravel with Air Canada in Montreal. The limited test market is covering five travel destinations: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Paris and yes, London – where the travel summit is set to take place. In a coordinated ad put forth by Air Canada, Apple and Telus in Montreal's English daily newspaper called the Gazette on April 29, 2010 – we're able to see Apple's iPhone with various iApps coordinated for the busy traveler. The service is initially using a 2D Matrix barcode system which was covered in Apple's patent – as was the concept of the "unmanned baggage kiosk." That's kind of buzz, really, to see Apple's April patent in action so quickly, even if it's only in-part: But Shhhh, it's a secret.